Gone Girl

Gone Girl

by

Gillian Flynn

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Desi Collings Character Analysis

Amy’s ex-boyfriend from boarding school. A prim and proper “dandy” of a man who appreciates the finer things in life, Desi was accused of having a fatal attraction to Amy and attempting suicide in her dorm room when she tried to end things with him in their youth. It is eventually revealed that this never happened—but that Desi has remained obsessed with Amy over the years, and she has stoked his attention by writing him clandestine letters. When Amy loses all of her money while in hiding after being robbed by Greta and Jeff, she calls upon Desi, whom she knows will relish the prospect of finally being her “savior.” Desi brings Amy to live at his lake house, where he can care for her and shelter her—but Desi’s romantic obsession with Amy is actually just as dangerous as in the stories she invented about him, and she soon realizes that she is Desi’s prisoner. Amy concocts a plan to free herself from Desi, carefully constructing things to make it look as if Desi was the one who kidnapped her to begin with, and like she seized her first opportunity to kill the brutal captor who had kept her tied up in bed for months on end.

Desi Collings Quotes in Gone Girl

The Gone Girl quotes below are all either spoken by Desi Collings or refer to Desi Collings. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Secrets and Lies Theme Icon
).
53. Nick Dunne, Forty Days Gone Quotes

I gestured to the twine, the hacked hair, the dried blood. “So, what’s your story, wife?”

“I’m back,” she whimpered. “I made it back to you.” She moved to put her arms around me. I moved away.

“What is your story, Amy?”

“Desi,” she whispered, her lower lip trembling. “Desi Collings took me. It was the morning. Of. Of our anniversary. And the doorbell rang, and I thought... I don’t know, I thought maybe it was flowers from you.”

I flinched. Of course she’d find a way to work in a gripe: that I hardly ever sent her flowers, when her dad had sent her mom flowers each week since they’d been married. That’s 2,444 bouquets of flowers vs. 4.

Related Characters: Nick Dunne (speaker), Amy Elliott Dunne (speaker), Desi Collings
Page Number: 372
Explanation and Analysis:
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Desi Collings Quotes in Gone Girl

The Gone Girl quotes below are all either spoken by Desi Collings or refer to Desi Collings. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Secrets and Lies Theme Icon
).
53. Nick Dunne, Forty Days Gone Quotes

I gestured to the twine, the hacked hair, the dried blood. “So, what’s your story, wife?”

“I’m back,” she whimpered. “I made it back to you.” She moved to put her arms around me. I moved away.

“What is your story, Amy?”

“Desi,” she whispered, her lower lip trembling. “Desi Collings took me. It was the morning. Of. Of our anniversary. And the doorbell rang, and I thought... I don’t know, I thought maybe it was flowers from you.”

I flinched. Of course she’d find a way to work in a gripe: that I hardly ever sent her flowers, when her dad had sent her mom flowers each week since they’d been married. That’s 2,444 bouquets of flowers vs. 4.

Related Characters: Nick Dunne (speaker), Amy Elliott Dunne (speaker), Desi Collings
Page Number: 372
Explanation and Analysis: